Only the blind can speak the truth Caring not where it lands Seeing not where it opens wounds Even in one’s Beloved’s own hands Only the blind can follow the truth Minding not where it leads Seeing not that an abyss sometimes looms For people, like themself, of honest deeds Only the blind can bear the truth Unbothered by its origin Seeing not the size of the mountain it moves Or the people and things it’s crushing Only the blind can see the truth No matter how bright and blinding its light For the truth-loving heart is forever full Of bold and unfailing insight. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
heart
HUMAN HEART
Santa and Satan are spelled with the same letters.
I just noticed it, please don’t crucify me.
Just know there’s a thin line between the two.
Sometimes when you think you’re looking out through a window, you’re actually looking at a mirror.
Saw this picture and liked it.
Something is buried in your heart and it could be anything. It’s probably everything.
Some pains will stay forever – well, probably not forever. Until you change and forgive and let go. Or until you die, I mean really die. Even when you forget, still you feel the pain and don’t know why. And then you remember – but you still don’t know why you took that first wrong step into the future.
But when you look at the serpent well, sometimes it seems as if it’s rising up to strike or writhing in treachery and deception. And sometimes it feels as if it’s begging for help and crying for forgiveness and looking for redemption. But some unsuspecting fool will pass by and think they’re looking at a heart. But you know better. You know you’re looking at a warning.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
THE HEART OF HUMANITY
With love we should call our children
So that with love they will come –
With love we should welcome our children
So that with love they will glow –
With love we should rear our children
So that with love they will grow –
With love we should release our children
So that with love they will go forth
And repeat the same process
With love –
Love is the only thing that makes us human –
Love is the most fundamental thing
That we should transfer from generation to generation
Through mankind –
Love is the progenitor, propagator and preserver
Of the HUMAN race –
Without love we are nothing.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BUT TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH
The heart rejoices twice:
When it laughs and when it weeps
The heart flames twice
When it loves and when it hates
The heart greets twice
When it meets and when it parts
The heart is birthed twice:
When it’s born and when it passes on.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
RUNNING WATERS
The story you told in the west is not identical with the laughter you laughed in the north, nor with the song you sang in the south, nor the thoughts you expressed in the east…
The language you spoke on the mountain is very different from the tongue you adopted in the valley, and from the violins you played through the woods, and the ballad you composed upon the blue-green meadows…
The roar you let out as you charged past us has a different content from the groan the desert drew out of you; and the whisper which ye sighed in this grateful heart is not the same cry with which ye flow into the sea.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
BUTTERFLY: BREAKING OUT OF A BROKEN HEART
It takes a long time
To forgive yourself
For not giving love back
To the person that gave it to you –
Nobody can break your heart
Only you can break your own heart
Nobody’s forgiveness can set you completely free
Until you yourself have broken out
Of your broken heart,
Like Butterly.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BONDING
You know those walks we took
Down untarred streets and red
And brown was sand and book by book
We discussed all we’d read
You know those suns that set
As quietly we’d gaze
With hearts that knew to not forget
The orange tempered rays
You know those thoughts we thought
And knew not their origin
Yet marvelled side by side at what
Hearts bonded could be given
Nations will rise and fall
Sages will come and go
But Friendship will outlast them all
Through you, this I now know.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
REBIRTH
Good morning
Bird singing outside my window
My neck I crane, yet
I see neither thee nor thy shadow
My ears I strain, for soft
Is thy voice of joy and sorrow
My heart shifts shape, ’tis now
A bird I must eternally follow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NATION
Nation must dig deep into
The luminous garden of soul
For new spirits must incarnate
Nation must dig deep into
The forgotten regions of soul
For sleeping spirit must awake
If we don’t change inside
Nothing will change outside.
We will merely pile up academic degrees.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
IT IS WELL
When blood like a river
Attendeth my soul
When mirrors
Turn backwards and cold
Whatever my lot
Let the past work away
It is well, it is well
With my goal.
Out of hell, burning bell
Wring my soul, ring my soul
Though we fell, now ’tis well
With our goal.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
* inspired by Spafford’s 19th century eponymous hymn.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 